Hello.

My house will be 100 years old in 2012. I’m preparing for its birthday by tracing the history of the house and everyone who’s ever lived in it. In doing so I’m creating pictures of life in Albany, past and present. And I’m trying to describe how quirky, undersung Albany became home to this wandering girl.

…………………………

I hate ranch houses.

The low ceilings, the small rooms, the awkward “picture” window, the unsightly, prominent garage: By the time I was growing up in them in the ’70s and ’80s, ranch houses were tired, worn. They were claustrophobic. They felt like houses without heart, thrown up quickly to fill the mundane role of sheltering people but not inspiring them.

I always wanted a house with history. Something with details to discover: An odd corner closet. A stained-glass window. At least crown moulding? Something like the houses in books. Books never took place in ranch houses — not cheerful books, anyway. Ranches, it seemed, had no quirks, no past.

Sometimes as a kid I tried to create history. I got one of those locking diaries and wrote a novel in it, in journal-entry form, then I wrapped it in plastic and went to bury it — along with a broken necklace, which figured somehow in the plot — in the back yard. I imagined the next tenants of our rental house finding it and believing it was real, that my heroine had once lived where they were living now. But four inches down into the mud, I hit a cluster of centipedes and they scared me off. I fear centipedes so much that I didn’t have the guts to try again.

We always rented. Renting was light: no roots. Passing through. In truth, my parents did buy one house, but that was quickly regarded as a mistake, one that tied us to an unfriendly town. The house, eventually, had to be jettisoned at a loss just to be free of it.

We were one of those families who weren’t from here — wherever “here” happened to be. I guess you’d say we moved around a fair bit: Before I moved to Texas for college at age seventeen we’d lived in five different towns in three states, my parents following the job market and the unstable opportunities it offered a teacher, and, later, a pair of journalists.

There’s something comfortable about being the outsiders. “Comfortable” — is that the right word? I don’t know. Maybe “safe.” Disengaged. Like knowing there’s a wall at your back, and you don’t have to step away from it. You can stand outside the circle and watch.

There was more to it, of course. But that’ll do for now.

Albany’s a welcoming home to outsider types: It’s a government town, a university town. For the first ten years I lived here, nearly everyone I knew had moved here from somewhere else. When I would meet a “local” I’d be confused at first by the accent: “Give me a cawl,” someone would say, sounding like a caricature of a New Yorker — huh, where’s she from? Oh. Here. Albany. Or, as they might say, “Awbany.”

Awbany’s a town full of history. It’s one of the very oldest cities in the country, in fact. Think of a place you associate with early American history. Boston? New York City? Philadelphia? Albany’s older than all of them. It sits at the place where Henry Hudson realized he wasn’t going to find the Northwest Passage up this way, and gave up and turned around and went back downstream. That was 1609. Traders put a fort here a few years later. The city received its charter in 1686.

Patroons, political machines, inventors, industry, villains — Albany has a history worthy of books. The city does little to capitalize on that history, or even to protect it very well. But that history was one of the first things that hooked me about Albany.

Without my intending it to happen, Albany has become my home in a way no other place ever was. I’m the owner of the type of house I always wanted, a house with character. And I have found myself wanting to know more about this town, its past, its places, and the parts of it I claim for my own.

This blog is the story of here, a discovery of how here came to be, and an exploration of how, for the first time in my life, I wanted to step away from the wall.

I to came to Albany years ago for school and have stayed in the area ever since. I think the “locals” forget how much history has occured in this area. A lot of big things have happened in Albany and the surrounding area, keep on blogging about Albany I look forward to reading it.

I attended V.I. from 1st through the 8th and then Hackett and Albany High..I was amazed to find out after I left V.I. how much history Albany contained that wasn’t mentioned in class except for little items like Thomas Edison and Fultons folly…and it was amazing to discover how much I did not know about Albany until “after” I was one of the lucky ones to “escape” from there..I now collect Albany memoribila from eBay…

Welcome – Enjoyed your post and look forward to reading more. I was born here and unless I win the lottery I am going to die here as well. I LOVE Albany history and quirks. I too refused to buy a ranch and got a rear hall colonial off New Scotland Ave. It was built in 1929 so I have 19 more years till it gets a 100 year old party. However I would also like to find out more info on my house and its residents. there are names on the deed going pretty far back but I dont know how to track down more info regarding house plans, builders, etc. I hope you share that type of info during your searches. I find stuff in the walls and the garage all the time that dates back 80 years, like the newspaper they used for insulation. I got the stock page from the Knickerbocker Press from Oct 1928 and it is interesting to see the listings. Keep up the good work.

What a fabulous topic for a blog, Akum. I look forward to reading what you learn about the house, any related (or not) history you uncover along the way and some tips on how to, perhaps, do similar research on our place.

I came to Albany 35 years ago, and was told “the city bird is the wrecking crane” Neighborhoods are born and change and sometimes they die. The Emeaus Methodist Church on W Lawrence is the successor of the Ash Grove Church on Trinity Place. The congregation that built that church in the 1850’s had grown old and died and their children were now in the new suburb of the Pine Hills. They sold their beautiful English Gothic Church ( looked a lot like the one on Lark St.) to the city which tore it down to build their newest School….and as the neighborhood changed it is now apartments. For 25 years I owned one of the 4 story houses built by Samuel Schuyler, founder of a large steam towboat company, just around the corner on Ash Grove Place In a 7,000 sq ft house there are lots of stairs. Enjoy them while you’re young, until you pass your well loved house on to another generation who will treasure so many stairs!

I’m not sure what it was about our childhoods that made us both so dislike ranch houses. Not that I’m complaining. But then why did you end up in a 1912 Victorian(?) in upstate New York and I’m in a 1941 stone cottage in central Texas?

I myself was born in Brooklyn, raised in the Suburbs of Long Island, and spent Summers in the “Country” Upstate.

My mother’s family was from Albany, so I spent Christmas at my Grandparent’s home on Southern Boulevard. My Mom was born at Brady Hospital, and my Mom and my Grandmom were both College of Saint Rose alum (my Grandmom got her Master’s at Columbia in the Thirties. We have always been so proud of her, and loved her even more).

I came here for the University (Go Danes!) and stayed for Albany.

I am so glad that you have found your dream house. More power to Albany People and Albany History.

Dan F.

Note: The Times Union is not responsible for posts and comments written by non-staff members.